


A broken point in time

by SilverBells



Category: Doctor Who, Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Crossover, Gen, candy rock mines, robot war, snake spine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-01
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-06 23:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1112731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverBells/pseuds/SilverBells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or the Doctor had an android boyfriend and he has a thing for robots (the good ones) and he visits the ruins of the Candy Rock mine with Clara and they find the Spine among the rubble. </p>
<p>(alternatively titled '2500 words of Robot feels')</p>
            </blockquote>





	A broken point in time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Appeltaart](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Appeltaart).



> Basically I got bullied into writing dw/spg fic by Appeltaart who has all sorts of robot feels while I teeter on the edge of the fandom. 
> 
> I might hypothetically write a sequel to this if there's people who would care for that. :)

A lonely wind blew through the dark, cavernous hole that was the Candy Rock mine, now a war-zone, smoking with the last, dying fires left by the war between the great elephants and the steam powered robots with their giant giraffe. A gear, rendered useless by an overly large proboscis only ours previous, creaked sadly, before it fell silent again, expectant.

A soft, wheezing crescendo broke the silence in the mine. Two green dots of light blinking into existence at the noise, flickering and struggling as the robot they belonged to fought to redirect his last remaining power to his most vital systems.

A soft gasp, definitely human, made the green flare.

_No, no humans. Humans hurt. Humans cannot be rebuilt._

"Doctor!"

_Doctor? Human mechanic?_

"Oh my, oh doctor, what happened here?"

With a soft creak the robot’s head turned. It hit the metal thing he was resting against with a loud clang and stayed there, observing the to figures standing in front of a big, blue box.

_Man. Woman._

The man’s coat billowed in the wind, the woman’s skirt, behind him, did the same. Both of their faces cast in shadows, paled by the moon. He could see her face only partially, but it looks confused, slightly worried and afraid. His just looks sad as he stalks forward, his long, lanky legs carrying him to the smoking remains of the giraffe.

"Doctor!" she called, as she hurried after him, careful not to trip over the machinery strewn everywhere.

_Be careful. They hurt._

“Doctor, where are we?”

“Africa!” he called back, twisting around and swinging his hands out as though he’d personally invented the continent, “Roughly 1897, Candy Rock mine!”

His face turned thoughtful, as he clasped his hands back together, wringing them. “Fixed point in time,” he muttered, soft enough that his companion missed it, but the sensitive robot ears picked it up anyway.

_Not fixed. Broken._

“Is that like a mine for candy?” asked the woman, looking at a flickering blue light, still concerned, “because it looks like a five year old threw a tantrum with his toy robots, but really violently.”

“No, Clara, no, it’s not for candy,” said the doctor, a bit forlornly, still stalking through the mine, as though searching for something. He jumped from broken thing to broken thing, but found nothing. A frustrated move had him pulling out a small device. It whirred, after he flicked it open and he pointed the light at its end towards the smoking piles.

_Green. Green matter. Elephant?_

“Why are we here?” the woman, Clara, asked anew, apparently used to the fact that the man did not answer all of her questions.

“Not sure,” said the doctor, while looking inquisitively at his whirring device, “It’s a fixed point in time, you see, so there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“About what?” Clara exclaimed, “What happened here?”

“The robot war,” the doctor yelled back, his arms snapping out to gesture at the mine as a whole, like that answered everything, “The robot war between Peter Walter and Thadeus Becile.”

_Walter. Home._

“They used to be friends, but fell out, both made robots and when one of them attacked the mine for its power source, they asked the other to fight against him.”

The doctor fell silent then, standing atop the trunk of the elephant and he gazed over the mine.

“That must have been hard, fighting against a friend,” said Clara, as she attempted to climb over to him.

“It’s always hard to fight against one of your own kind,” the doctor answered, turning towards her struggling figure again, “Especially if you used to be your friend.”

He jumped down from the trunk and walked — or more like swaggered — down a somewhat obstacle-free path. “These poor sods got caught in the crossfire.”

He pointed at the wrangled remains of a robot, shining in the light of the moon and lighting up green when the doctor pointed his device at it again.

“What, the robots?”

“Yes,” the doctor replied, as he came closer and closer to the robot, “They were build to be making music, you know? It’s quite tragic.”

“Music, really?” Clara wondered. She crouched down next to one of the robots and smiled at it, “That’s nice.”

“Yeah, they’re quite good too,” the excitement returned to the voice of the doctor, as he made a few humming noises, “Named one of my dance moves after them.”

He brought his hands above his head and shook them around, making the girl laugh at him.

“Can’t do it very well though,” he said with a laugh, “So it kind of became a drunk version, but it’s a winner at parties!”

The robot whirred. 

_Music._

Another clunk of his head had him leaning a bit further down the metal thing and this time, it got the attention of the woman.

“Did you hear that?” she questioned, her head turned into his direction. It made her hair flick over her shoulder and she widened her eyes, as though it would allow her to see what had caused the noise.

“Hmmm?” replied the doctor.

_Sound._

With a great deal of effort, the robot again lifted his head, only to let it fall back with another loud bang.

“That!” shouted Clara, but the doctor was already running past her, exclaiming a “Yes I did!” of his own.

Eyes, human eyes, flicked over the robot’s face, searching for what to fix as broad hands cupped the metal face and turned it towards himself.

“Hello! What have we got here?” he wondered, mostly to himself, before asking, “Who are you?”

_Redirecting power to vocal unit. Processing._

“S- s…” the robot managed.

“Oh dear, is he all right?” Clara worried, as she fell down on her knees on the other side of the robot.

The doctor pointed his device at the robot and flicked it up to read off of it. “Mostly, yes. Just a very limited power supply, some nasty, nasty memories and a few missing circuits!”

Clara’s hand replaced the doctor’s on the side of his face and gently pulled his severed head into her lap.

“He looks a bit strange for a robot.” Clara said, as her fingers slowly trailed over the planes of his neck, “Like a snake but with a sort of human head.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s supposed to have a body,” said the doctor, while slowly lifting the pointy, flexible end of the robot’s neck to examine it.

“So, where is it?” came his confused answer.

“Don’t. Know.” he replied, twirling around again to look at the area around them, “Has to be here somewhere. Don’t you worry, I’ll find it!” and he was off dashing through the piles of the robot’s brothers and sisters.

_Be careful._

Clara stared after him for a few seconds, before glancing back at the robot. “Don’t worry, he always does that, he’ll be fine.”

She smiled down at him, her hair falling over her face, but he was still able to make out its features and she smiled.

_Smile. Happy._

“I guess it’s you and me for a bit,” she said, shifting into a more comfortable position, “That’s all right, you’re quite good company, you know?”

Her eye fell on a half burned hat laying in the dust beside them and she reached for it, turning it over in her hands before looking down at him again.

“Here, this looks like it suits you, eh?”

Carefully, she placed the black hat on his head and smiled, cocking her head. “Yeah it really does.”

“S-spine.”

A shock travelled through her body when the dark voice spoke to her, the robot’s mouth barely moving. She almost dislodged him from her lap, before her eyes widened with understanding and she slapped both hands back on his cheeks.

“Did you just talk?” she said, awed, “What did you mean, do you want your spine? Do you want your body?”

“Name,” he managed, “The Spine.”

“Your name?” she repeated, “Your name is the Spine?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a great name,” she said, “I expected something more robotic, like. Er— Geary!”

She laughed at herself for a moment, before glancing down at him again, “Oh don’t give me that face! Geary’s a great name! The Spine works though, I guess. You know, as soon as we get you one.”

“Found it!”

The doctor’s voice echoed through the metal wasteland, sounding excited and a bit out of breath. Before long, they spotted him climbing back up towards them, from where he’d descended into the mines.

“Come on, Clara, Snakey! It’s right down there!”

He reached them quickly and helped Clara rise to her feet, after taking the Spine’s head underneath his arm. Their hands pressed against each other and they intertwined their fingers.

_Rabbit._

All sorts of metal trinkets and parts rolled down, as the three of them made their way into the mine and then onto a ledge, on which rested a silver, gleaming body without a head. The doctor ran right up to it, but Clara stopped, he could see her hesitating to step onto the ledge when the doctor turned around.

“Well?”

“He looks a bit— scary, doesn’t he?” she said, staring at the body, blackened by fire and electrical shocks, torn apart by chains and metal elephant noses. The saw attached to one arm still dripped with oil, the other arm bereft of any weapon, but with steam escaping from the seams ever so often.

“Everything can be a bit scary when you don’t know what it is or what it’s like,” the doctor said, “Or when what they really are is hidden or changed.”

He glanced at Clara a bit sadly, “Like I said, they’re meant to be making music. They don’t usually have weapons.” He pulled a face at the word, before he crouched down next to the Spine’s body and carefully inserted the tip of him back into his neck-socket. “I hate weapons,” he whispered to the Spine, almost secretively.

“Me too.”

The doctor blinked at him, before a blinding smile appeared on his face. “You can talk! Blimey.”

“Yeah, sorry, should’ve mentioned that, he told me his name just now,” Clare spoke up from behind them. She’d approached the body after the doctor’s words, but remained at a distance, as she let the doctor do his thing.

“Really? What’s your name then?”

It was at that moment, that he reconnected with his core and energy soared through him. “My name is the Spine,” he said, eyes flaring green, “The Spine is me. Hello, yes, thank you.”

“Lovely,” said he doctor, flapping about for a bit and looking up at Clara excitedly before pointing down at the Spine, “He’s the Spine, oh, this is great.”

“Why is it great, human mechanic?”

“Well, because you— you and,” the doctor slapped a hand to his own mouth, before pressing one finger against it, shushing himself, “Spoilers.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Probably better that way,” the doctor reassured him, not very reassuringly.

“Where is Rabbit?” the Spine asked, convinced this was the most pressing question to ask.

“Who?” Clara asked, obviously confused.

“My- my,” the Spine said, “My brother.” His body whirred and rattled, as he attempted to sit up. “Hatchworth, the Jon. Where are they?”

A hand pushed him back down and as the Doctor’s device was pointed at him again, he felt his systems shut down gently, like he was going into charge-rest.

“They’re fine,” said the doctor, “Or they will be, I promise.”

Clara’s eyes, brown and flickering with the green of his own, stared down at him sadly and — again — confused.

“He’s a robot,” she said and crossed her arms over her chest, “How can he have brothers if he’s a robot?”

The Doctor smiled up at her. “Oh, Clara, dear Clara, that’s the beauty of it. You see, They’re not evil robots. We’ve met a lot of evil robots haven’t we? Not these, not this one, no.”

He pointed his device at the Spine’s arm, dislocating the chainsaw and pushing it off the ledge. It bounced off the sides of the mineshaft beneath the ledge, dislocating some rubble here and there before it disappeared into the darkness below. “They’re nice, these robots and so, so very alive. They’re very human, in a robot-y way. They’re not empty like cybermen, they weren’t made for war like Daleks.”

He smiled again, wistfully, petting at the Spine’s face and rearranging his arms to rest by his body. “They form relationships, just like we do, so the robots that were made by the same man that made him, those are brothers and sisters to him. The ones he just named, they’re his siblings in their own right.”

“Relationships, huh,” said Clara, who had sat down on the ledge, “Like your android boyfriend?”

The doctor sputtered, before glaring at Clara, scandalized. “No, nothing like that. That was a horrible, horrible decision. No, no, I’m sure the spine would be a much better candidate for something like that than that- that- cheater!”

_?_

“He cheated on you?”

“With a very pretty blender-bot, very nice whiskers, I have to admit, he had good taste. Gave me a bow-tie made of metal, bit heavy, not very practical for the wear, should’ve worn that one today.”

“This one’s handsome, a bit,” said Clara, mostly ignoring the doctor’s words. It seemed he often started babbling and she had learned not to listen, perhaps to filter out the most important parts. The Spine smiled.

_Rabbit._

“Rabbit?”

“Yes, yes, Rabbit, Rabbit,” the doctor repeated back at him, “He’s fine, he’ll be fine. So will Hatchworth and the Jon and the others. They’re fine, they will be.”

_He lies._

“Now! Relax, don’t worry, Peter’ll be here in a bit, he’ll pick you up, he’ll help you. You’ll be okay.”

_Okay._

“Are we really going to leave him here, Doctor?” Clara had slowly shuffled closer to the Spine’s head again and stroked a hand over his cheek, softly smiling.

“Fixed point in time, Clara,” the Doctor said, rising to his feet, the space between his knobbly knees filled with the steam still leaking from the Spine’s seams, “Can’t change anything big. This is all we can do, I’m afraid.”

He reached for Clara’s hand again and made to tug her off the ledge with him, back towards where they left the big blue box.

_Power to vocal units. Processing._

“Thank you.”

They both turned to him, illuminated by the moon so they were only shadows. The Doctor pulled the device from his pockets one final time and pointed it at the Spine.

“You’re welcome.” And everything shut down.


End file.
